Hispanics and Latinos have become the biggest minority in America's cities, according to the latest data derived from the 2010 US census – marking a small but significant shift in the demographic make-up of the country's urban centres.

According to the US Census Bureau [pdf], Hispanic and Latino residents now form the single biggest minority in 191 of the country's 366 metropolitan areas, which are themselves home to more than 80% of the country's population.

Since the previous census in 2000, the Latino population has been the fastest growing ethnic group within the US, and now makes up more than 16% of the total population: a total of 50 million people, or one in every six Americans.

In comparison, what the census calls "black or African American" now account for 12% of the US population, for a total of 39 million.

The upshot of all these numbers makes for a complicated political equation, with the census data used to redraw congressional districts. As the Associated Press reported on the new figures:

"A greater Hispanic presence is now evident in all parts of the country – in large and small metropolitan areas, in the Snowbelt and in the Sunbelt," said William H Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, who analyzed the census data. "From now on, local, state and national politicians will need to pay attention to Hispanics rather than treating blacks as the major minority," he said.

The 2000 census figures first showed Hispanics and Latinos overtaking blacks and African Americans as the country's largest minority. But in the following decade the gap widened considerably.

Those defining themselves as white alone accounted for 64% of the US population in the 2010 census, making up 196 million of the US's total population of 308 million.